FrankenFerrari - V12 Ferrari 308

Warning: Car content

Lana gave me a wonderful 2014 Mercedes GLK 350 with 108k miles for my birthday to replace the dead 328. ......which of course was her car which gave me the great honor of presenting her with whatever the heck her asked for. 

.....which turned out to be a 2021 GLB....but I failed to strike a deal with any dealer in the northeast  because I am a cheap bastard .....but after my total failure she "settled" for a 2018 GLC with 10343 miles.

And unrelated the stairs are ready for stain and paint.

This mornings my knees were really liking having stair again...its the little thinkgs in life.

The treads are red oak and will be stained and urethaned.  I was thinking they'd get the oil base but I was told I was thinking wrong and it will be water based.

The risers and stringers are pine and will be white paint.  I want to get the oak sealed now so I'm not worrying too much about about what spills on it know at worst a quick sand and topcoat and its perfect.  Its also easier to not sand and paint around spindles.  The painted stuff I'll leave and paint with the rest of the trim.  This seems to have taken forever to get to this point but I'm hoping the pace picks up now.  

I had had everything set and was waiting on the treads so you can see in the background I build the raised platform for the theater and got the columns wrapped with drywall...after a couple days of discussion with the designer about how how exactly they were supposed to look and connect to the platform and counter wall behind.  

In this image you can see that even with the robust discussions there were 3 separate orders issued on the height of the counter alone...it takes a long time to get stuff finished when everything needs to be discussed and built multiple times.  

There is a closet under the stairs, the location of the door was picked early on...then moved to the side with the steel column kind of in the way so it was either a 24in door (vetoed) or a 28in with an anything but normal install...it looks normal from the outside and doesn't really look wrong inside but I JUST got it in there which all takes time to figure out and do....all because "I think it would look nicer if you don't see the closet door as you walk in, thanks".  I  can't even imagine what this would be costing were I paying for labor...you know, other than the ferrari engine just sitting.

Forgot the best part of the car story.  Among my whining about always getting hand-me-downs of cars that I don't actually like and how much life the GLK has let in it we started to talk about 14 year old son and mama actually caring if he's happy.....and I tentatively have permission to buy "him" an older boxster or cayman when the day arrives.  We'll see if that stills true in a couple years but the plan now it to just keep repeating as if its a done deal, and even talked about starting to put money aside,  so ferrari running by then or not, the household may again have a running sports car 

mke said:

she "settled" for a 2018 GLC with 10343 miles.

As far as I'm concerned, there will only ever be one "GLC":

Anyhow, great work on the stairs!

Also, convertibles are stupid. Cayman all the way!!!

You need change orders and financial compensation for any extra work beyond the agreed plans.......    

Is that lapping bar here yet?

bentwrench said:

Is that lapping bar here yet?

I finally checked in with them today.....they now say it will ship 6/30.  Understand though that I still have a bathroom to build and floor to install before there is any chance of having my workshop pass returned.

mke said:

I finally checked in with them today.....they now say it will ship 6/30.  Understand though that I still have a bathroom to build and floor to install before there is any chance of having my workshop pass returned.

whoa! mcmaster just emailed me a material cert for the bar so  I looked on the website and its saying the bar delivers Monday.  hmmmmm......I need to just stop asking for decisions on basement stuff and just let construction grind to a halt 

In reply to mke :

Do be careful.  My late wife wanted me to put lipstick on a pig. ( fix up an old house with bad bones )   Careful examination of the structure reviewed less than 1/3 of the old house passed muster structurally.  Saving that portion would result in awkward rooms poor sight lines. And massive labor. 
      Instead I decided a new house was called for. Decades of fighting with the city for planning permission. Followed by a campaign for mayor. And permission granted. 
   A typical new house takes from 2500-3000 man hours start to finish.   I'm currently on 31,000 manhours spent by me with about 2,200 hired help assistance. 
       Car's got shuffled into corners and 20+ years later I just stopped working on the house.  My best estimate is about 5000 manhours  to complete satisfaction. 
     Don't let that time slide by without some return to your project.  

In reply to frenchyd :

I hear you.  the truly sad part about this house remold is we built it new 16 years ago exactly the way we wanted it so there would be no projects 

In other new, it arrived.  After 4 months the lapping bar is here.

well, obviously now that I have the long awaited bar step 1 was to refinish the new steps from full gloss to the semi-gloss Lana prefers.....you see where this is going?

Once I'm allowed in the shop, assuming that day does come, my plan to drive the bar is just weld on a 1" OD or so extension, drill a 3/8 or 1/2 hole in that for a handle.  Something simple....

What's the value in the extension? Why not just drill and tap the bar itself? Is it too hard? Does drilling & tapping it present a more significant chance of deformation than welding?

Stairs look great, BTW. I'm with Lana on semi-gloss.

Syscrush said:

What's the value in the extension? Why not just drill and tap the bar itself? Is it too hard? Does drilling & tapping it present a more significant chance of deformation than welding?

Stairs look great, BTW. I'm with Lana on semi-gloss.

The bar just doesn't stick out the end of the block far enough to be able to turn the handle is the only reason and longer bar was another $100 iirc so I figured save the 100 bucks and tack on whatever juch I find in the stock pile.

On the finish, this was my first go with the water based poly and I just wasn't sure which to pick...most waterbased stuff gloss isn't actually glossy but this was it turned out.....there were clearly VOCs in the the gloss that are not in the semi so the semi wins Lana's kids safe award too.   This one they say is thinker and recommend 3-4 coats....so 8 coats in I think we're done.  They say sand with 120-150 between coats,  so I used 320 and it still took 2 coats between sandings (so double the chance of dust/junk in the finish) to hide all the sanding marks and give an even looking finish.  But it looks nice now and Lana's happy....so she told me do the whole first floor the same 

wow you must be due for the husband of the year award

Road and Track wrote about this project and this thread!

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a26030021/homemade-ferrari-308-v12-swap/?src=socialflowFBRAT&fbclid=IwAR2yT3bGs4uZQuQA-0mwCAtsys453A1MUkGyURX9IAxrbHaPGWzRmU79Pi8&utm_campaign=socialflowR%26T&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&fbclid=IwAR0RKrtD6RdsPPkivuhXsvPssXU2xLaekZ8XYPsxdzuv9ZQ0ffnAnaqXxvk
 

Mke said:

I put a 472/500 caddy engine in an x1/9, no interest in repeating that mistake so I decided to make all new mistakes...

That was from a couple years ago, I think there is a link on about page 15....did it pop up again?

I would argue the bigger honor was making the GRM home page and a mention/pic in the printed version about the same time 

As an update,,,yeah, I'm still stuck in my basement.  I finished the mud work around the stairs and started the bathroom so 8-12 more basement weeks I'd guess.  

One less project kicking around as craigslist delivered a buyer for the still broken BMW....bye-bye

I was in Lana's new (to us) GLC the other day and  the radio reminds of one I had in a barely running '73 Pontiac I owned in the 90s.  The station push buttons were broken so it was a lot of bother to change the station, so it was really a 1 station radio most of the time.... this one has no buttons so its actually worse to use than the broken 73 Pontiac radio that would at least get me close to a station....after about 10 minutes even the kids gave up messing with it.  I have no idea what the folks at Mercedes were thinking but it is the worst car radio I've ever used.....at least the radio in the BMW was still working to the very end :)

So we are having difficultly deciding on so bathroom details....so I went out to the shop to think about the options 

I set the cylinders back up.  The plan is the couple that had the most wonky spigots keep the JBweld but the rest will get epoxy primer which will easily add 2 though per side and tighten everything right up....should have started with epoxy.  Just got to get the JBweld off 3 more.  If I ever need another set of cylinders I will probably hone the spigot holes ion the block a touch and then up the cylinders to better match.

Ok, no jbweld on 9 cylinders, they all measure 3.5705+/-.0005" , JBweld on 3 and they measure 3.571-3.572.  The notes from the 1st machine shop that did the final spigot bores says 3.572, which is why my cylinder drawing is 3.571....but I measure 3.574 at the bottoms and as much as 3.576 at the top (which is really the middle of the cylinder where the o-ring sits)...this is without the mains torqued.  This could be my fault, as that was all welded which makes getting a good machined finish very difficult and I'm sure  I've touch then with sandpaper a couple times to clean them up....which will knock off high spots and easily explain why they are now tapered as its way easier to reach the top part.  I was putting aviation sealant on the o-ring because the 0ring seat surface in the block is made of weld and not perfect and every time I pulled the liners there was sealant between the liner and block no matter how carefully I thought I was being....no doubt this is how it was getting in there.

I'm sure I could put the cylinders in now and the major out of round will be gone but as I said I'm leaning toward coating them all with epoxy paint and bring them to about 3.5735-3.5740 then warm the block up to 200F or so before I drop them in. I'm a little torn though....I could probably find a way to hone the spigots bores straight to about 3.576.....I'll think on this a bit I guess as I don't have any epoxy primer so nothing is happening today anyway.  I'm going to try to use the 6-10am Sat-Sun time when I'm up but the family isn't to keep this moving.

On the lapping bar I really don't have anything on the shelf to attach for the handle so I need to order something...my plan is get the cylinders sorted and in the block then sort the mains and bolt to together.....at least that's the plan.

Is knurling a worse idea than JB-Weld or epoxy primer for some reason?

I'm wondering if drilling and tapping for the handle for the lapping bar might not be better than welding.  I'm concerned that the heat from welding will distort the end of the bar slightly.

In reply to APEowner :

My thoughts exactly.  That's something you really don't want to risk any warpage on, otherwise why bother with the procedure?

Syscrush said:

Is knurling a worse idea than JB-Weld or epoxy primer for some reason?

Knurling would likely deform the cylinders, I think it would actually change the ID as well.

Plating would be another way to build up the OD on the sleeves.